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NEW YORK, NY - OCTOBER 03: Grace Potter performs live on stage at Radio City Music Hall on October 3, 2015 in New York City. (Photo by Matthew Eisman/Getty Images)

As a rule companies aspire to brand loyalty, to having customers or fans pledge their allegiance to your name. But this can be a double-edged sword, as Coke found out in the most famous example when they debuted New Coke, only to alienate millions of consumers.

Musicians are all too familiar with this tale, building bases of diehard admirers and then following the angry responses as a band disbands or an artist goes solo. The attachment of fans to musicians is so great that the Foo Fighters had to recently issue a video insuring fans they were not breaking up.

Grace Potter found this out when, after 13 years fronting the Nocturnals, a band that opened for Robert Plant, the Rolling Stones and Kenny Chesney, among others, Potter decided to strike out on her own with Midnight. She tells Forbes she was surprised by the fevered response.

“I was pretty amazed at how psychotic people got, but in a funny way,” she says. “I didn’t realize how controversial this whole thing was going to be.”

Potter couldn’t have anticipated this, given it was always her name first on the marquee. “I didn’t even really think about it because it was my name in the front of the band all along,” she says. “It’s not like the White Stripes, where suddenly it’s just gone and Jack White is doing the Raconteurs or whatever. I thought the transition would be simpler.”

With Midnight getting strong reviews and a year of touring the album under her belt fans have come to accept the change though. And that will have to continue to be the case as Potter’s focus is being a solo artist these days.

“I’m definitely not thinking about the Nocturnals right now. I’m not thinking about what the next project is going to be in any capacity yet,” she says. “I’m just enjoying the glow of owning my own musical experience and really taking responsibility for myself and my choices musically and personally. It was 13 years of one thing, I’m not really in any hurry to go back to it at least.”

She is particularly looking forward to bring her current band and the new music to New Orleans Jazz Fest on Friday, April 22. “I’m excited to share my newly minted music and especially having a couple of real deal New Orleans cats in my band, I feel so tuned in to that spirit and that energy of New Orleans,” she says. “It’s just a musical adventure and it’s really opened me up and makes me feel incredibly blessed. The Nocturnals and I had lots of years to enjoy being a certain kind of band, but to have the knowledge and a very different kind of musicality on stage, the inherent musicality of this group is something that I think is going to translate and I just can’t wait to interact with the audience again. I think it’s gonna be pretty amazing.”

For Potter to play Jazz Fest or any other festival is always interesting as she approaches it not only as a musician and fan, but a festival promoter herself, having created the Grand Point North Festival in her hometown of Burlington, Vermont in 2011. While Potter has a bucket list of artists she would like to play the festival, from Patti Smith and Iggy Pop to Twenty One Pilots and her old touring mate, Plant, she is adamant she doesn’t want the event to grow to compete with the likes of Coachella, Lollapalooza and Bonnaroo.

“I want to keep the festival intimate. If you came this would be your first year. I wouldn’t want to turn the festival into a cattle call, I’d want you to have that intimate experience just like everybody does at this festival,” she says. “It’s a small festival for a reason and it’s successful because so much of the community is devoted to really sharing the best of Vermont.”

As a festival promoter she is also aware that Vermont isn’t the easiest state to play as it doesn’t fit neatly into tour routing. “Vermont is such a specific market it’s not always easy to drag just anyone up and have it be worth the money it would cost to get them there,” she admits. As a music fan though, she still has lofty aspirations. “I’m gonna dream big, maybe I have Lady Gaga drop in from a helicopter.”